9 ms·

The Scully Effect

119 points by joebig 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
georgeburdell 2y ago
“Elizabeth Rubio lives with too many cats in Austin, Texas” That’s the upshot. Ms. Rubio’s life path is an evolutionary dead end. For her message to perpetuate itself into the future, she needs to create women role models that are smart but also retain femininity and value having a family, and not just try to have them ape men. Muslim [1] and Israeli populations walk this line well [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
- justinclift 2y ago
  Non-paywalled version: https://archive.md/fPlxw https://archive.md/fPlxw
lupire 2y ago
I find it incredibly bizarre, ther scientists, of all professions, are inspired by fantasy story characters. It's so at odds with what science is. I'm a a scientist and I enjoy sci-fi, but the cause and effect is firmly in the other direction.
HocusLocus 2y ago
Nichelle Nichols (1932-2022, Uhura on Star Trek) had a similar impact, bless her sweet soul. 2011-07-10,11: Startalk: Nichelle Nichols. great interview! http://www.startalkradio.net/show/nasa-and-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/nasa-and-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-nichel... Through her ground-breaking role as Star Trek's Chief Communications Officer Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols became a passionate advocate to get women and minorities involved in real-world space exploration. Many were inspired to become astronauts thanks to her efforts, including NASA's current administrator, General Charles Bolden. While she continues working through various endeavors to get young people excited about space, she hopes that the power of Star Trek will inspire us to keep pushing the boundaries of the final frontier. 2011-07-11: StarTalk: A Conversation with Nichelle Nichols Some might know Nichelle Nichols best from Star Trek, but this actress, singer, dancer and space advocate has much to say beyond her role in TV's exploration of the final frontier. In this exclusive interview, she talks about how science fiction and Star Trek --- and specifically her ground-breaking role as Chief Communications Officer Lt. Uhura --- not only impacted her life, but also had an influence on society over space and time.
TMWNN 2y ago
Highly relevant: TIL that Leonard Nimoy met many fans who became scientists because of Spock's example, and talked to the 'Star Trek' actor as if he were a fellow researcher. Nimoy always nodded and told them, "Well, it certainly looks like you’re headed in the right direction." <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6o8egb/til_that_leonard_nimoy_met_many_fans_who_became/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6o8egb/til_th...> TIL that DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy on 'Star Trek') had wanted to become a doctor, but could not afford medical school. He received many letters from fans who went into medicine because of his character: "To influence the youth of the country ... is an award that is not handed out by the industry". <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6pwdrr/til_that_deforest_kelley_dr_mccoy_on_star_trek/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6pwdrr/til_th...> TIL that James Doohan (Scotty on 'Star Trek') received an honorary doctorate from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The university gave him the degree after half of its students said in a survey that his character had inspired them to choose engineering as a career. <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6onyh6/til_that_james_doohan_scotty_on_star_trek/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6onyh6/til_th...>
- card_zero 2y ago
  Patrick Stewart influenced me to drink even more tea.
  - teekert 2y ago
    Kate Mulgrew influenced me to drink even more coffee ;) "There's coffee in that nebula!"
  - teekert 2y ago
    Btw, every time we have another war, fail to meet climate goals, etc, I imagine Jean-Luc looking down on us through a force-field window of the Enterprise in orbit, sighing: "Savages."
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Spock was somehow was equally damning just by saying "fascinating!"
kaycebasques 2y ago
> We can’t create a reality until we can imagine it.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
wumms 2y ago
> The influence of the Dana Scully character on my generation of girls is known as the Scully Effect. The linked PDF is offline; archived version [0] from 2018; created somewhere between 2016-2018. [0] THE ”SCULLY EFFECT“: I WANT TO BELIEVE…IN STEM https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21...
zaep 2y ago
Can it possibly be true that 60+% (she writes "nearly two-thirds") of women in STEM have this character as an influence? I'm only barely aware of this media property and here in Europe I feel our Media is fairly "American" still, does this show have such a global reach? I found, for instance, that the X-Files movie only had 4.2% of its revenue internationally, so I think its not such a popular property outside the US. How would even 10% of chinese female STEM workers hear of this character? I believe she is citing the PDF she links, where only an archived version is available right now. It seems to be a US-only study, although I don't see any explanation of where participants were from.
- datpiff 2y ago
  The movies were much less successful than the TV series. The series was definitely hugely popular in Western Europe at least, I can't speak for the whole continent. Yep, the PDF/study is US-based (and funded by 21st Century Fox lol) " The sample was demographically representative and weighted to be representative of women in the U.S. population based on age (25 and older), STEM involvement, and viewing of The X-Files" https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21...
- theshrike79 2y ago
  It's not about revenue, but cultural penetration and knowledge. "Everyone" knew who and what Scully was. She was the doctor/scientist brains of the team, while Mulder just went around investigating crazy stuff.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    Same with Star Trek a generation before - a whole generation of scientists and engineers would site Spock and Scotty as inspirations.
teekert 2y ago
I'm a man (also from early 80's) and I still identified more with Scully than with Mulder. She was just so cool. Now I have a daughter and she's all about unicorns, rainbows and princesses and I keep telling her she can be a knight. Or a scientist. Weirdly I think all those Barbie cartoons on Netflix are having a good influence on her, Barbie is strong but fallible, honest, admits her mistakes, works hard to correct them, does not give up. She super privileged though... I feel like my daughter is getting quite good in social situations because of Barbie (and Lucky from Spirit, and Zoe from The New Adventures of Lassie). In any case, it has a different influence on her than the stuff my son watches, which is (a sigh of relieve) also increasingly involving strong women: Avatar (the last airbender), She-Ra, Carmen San Diego... Strong women... on the Battle Field.
- NemoNobody 2y ago
  Little late on this but I watched Stephen Universe with my nephew and I was really impressed with that show - lots of very positive messages and the general feel of the show is quite different from the usual cartoon network show - but still very much a cartoon. I think the snow runner Rebecca Sugar did an excellent job - she was a writer for AT as well. One of my favorite characters is Stephen's Dad - he literally lives in his van. I'd recommend watching with your daughter someday for sure
- john2x 2y ago
  Have you seen Hilda on Netflix? It’s amazing.
  - rlawson 2y ago
    My 6 yr olds favorite show, can be a little dark at times
    - teekert 2y ago
      Just got started on it, thanx for the suggestion! (Nice that it’s with Dutch audio here, what a world!)
    - 2y ago
pdpi 2y ago
Somebody I don’t often see cited as this sort of aspirational role model is Gil Grissom from the original CSI show. He’s the archetypical nerd — quiet introvert who’s enthusiastic about his little niche to the point even his also-pretty-nerdy colleagues think it’s a bit much. He also rises to the challenge of being a leader and a mentor, and he does so with the tools his personality gives him.
- NemoNobody 2y ago
  Gil was fantastic - such a great role model in hindsight.
light_hue_1 2y ago
This is why representation matters. Regardless of how some parts of the political spectrum hate it now. There's an amazing story about MLK and Star Trek that's similar. Nichelle Nichols recalls https://www.startrek.com/news/nichelle-nichols-remembers-dr-king https://www.startrek.com/news/nichelle-nichols-remembers-dr-... She wanted to quit. She was a real actor, from a serious theater background and this was going to hurt her career. This all took place at the height of the civil rights movement. Selma, Bloody Sunday, had just happened 2 days earlier. Verbatim from the story: That weekend, Nichols attended what she remembers as a NAACP fundraiser, "though, it could have been something else." Whatever it was, she found herself in Beverly Hills, and seated at the dais as other notables entered the room to join in on the festivities. "One of the organizers of the event came over to me and said, 'Ms. Nichols, I hate to bother you just as you’re sitting down to dinner, but there’s someone here who wants very much to meet you. And he said to tell you that he is your biggest fan,'" Nichols said. "I said, 'Oh, certainly,' I stood up and turned around and who comes walking over towards me from about 10 or 15 feet, smiling that rare smile of his, is Dr. Martin Luther King. I remember saying to myself, 'Whoever that fan is, whoever that Trekkie is, it’ll have to wait because I have to meet Dr. Martin Luther King.' And he walks up to me and says, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' You know I can talk, but all my mouth could do was open and close, open and close; I was so stunned." Dr. King revealed to Nichols that Star Trek was the only show that he and his wife Coretta allowed their little children to stay up and watch. Further, he told Nichols what the show meant to him personally and detailed the importance of her having created a character with "dignity and knowledge." Nichols took it all in and finally said, “Thank you so much, Dr. King. I’m really going to miss my co-stars.” Dr. King's smile, Nichols recalled, vanished from his face. "He said, 'What are you talking about?'" the actress explained. "I told him. He said, 'You cannot,' and so help me, this man practically repeated verbatim what Gene said. He said, 'Don’t you see what this man is doing, who has written this? This is the future. He has established us as we should be seen. 300 years from now, we are here. We are marching. And this is the first step. When we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud.' He goes on and I’m looking at him and my knees are buckling. I said, 'I…, I…' And he said, 'You turn on your television and the news comes on and you see us marching and peaceful, you see the peaceful civil disobedience, and you see the dogs and see the fire hoses, and we all know they cannot destroy us because we are there in the 23rd Century.'" "That’s all it took," Nichols continued. "I went back on Monday morning and told Gene what had happened. He sat there behind that desk and a tear came down his face, and he looked up at me. I said, 'Gene, if you want me to stay, I will stay. There’s nothing I can do but stay.' He looked at me and said, 'God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Somebody truly knows what I am trying to do.' [Roddenberry] opened his drawer, took out my resignation and handed it to me. He had torn it to pieces. He handed me the 100 pieces and said, 'Welcome back.'”
kleiba 2y ago
> The influence of the Dana Scully character on my generation of girls is known as the Scully Effect. We women who frequently watched The X-Files as teenagers were more than 50% more likely to study a STEM field in college than women who didn’t watch. Good old "correlation is not causation" at play, I suppose: if you're scientifically inclined, you're probably more likely to both watch X-Files and go into a STEM field later on.
- jonathanlydall 2y ago
  Back when CSI at least seemed to be plausible. I used to really enjoy CSI, I didn't even mind that Miami was quite cheesy, but at some point after they started New York all of them had gotten beyond ridiculous in their depictions of technology and what it was capable of, it was completely fantastical and seemed to lack any kind of basis on reality. Maybe it was also that I was getting older and having less time, but the CSI series were the first shows that despite watching somewhat religiously, I actually stopped watching in disgust and also feeling a bit angry at how useless the producers and/or screenplay writers had become.
cjs_ac 2y ago
I was a physics teacher in Australia and the UK from 2015 to 2021. I wrote a comment about teaching in a boys' school yesterday, but most of my career was spent in girls' schools, due partly to the Vogonic culture of the NSW Department of Education and Training. There were many 'get girls into STEM' initiatives, and they all felt very tokenistic and superficial. They were science-themed, but none of them got at the guts of STEM. In Australia, physics - in the schools that offer it - is taught by chemistry or biology teachers who've been given a physics textbook. In the private boys' schools, there's a cadre of actual physicists, but they're old men on the verge of retirement; students in government schools, systemic Catholic schools and private girls' schools get a very un-mathematical physics education, if their school offers a specialised physics course at all. The end result of this is the propagation of a very misleading view of STEM to girls. All the high-paying STEM jobs are in those fields that have a rigorous mathematical formalism - physics, computer science, engineering - but our STEM outreach programs ended up pushing girls towards 'soft science' careers in biology. I understand that there are now so many bio lab workers in the UK that they're now on minimum wage. If we really want to encourage women and girls to take up high-paying STEM careers, we need to be demonstrating and teaching the cognitive styles that underlie success in mathematics. At the moment, all we're doing is making maths pink[0]. [0] https://skepchick.org/2010/08/smbc-women-in-mathematics/ https://skepchick.org/2010/08/smbc-women-in-mathematics/
- gizajob 2y ago
  "very tokenistic and superficial" - welcome to 'straya m8.
- pydry 2y ago
  I dont think there is any real political imperative to welcome women into science. STEM is intrinsically difficult and in demand which means it's highly paid and as a result there is a political imperative to drag down wages....somehow. Bringing more women in probably seems as good a way as any to the old, white, male (and sexist) reactionary politicians and their business leader sponsors. So, they tried to make science pink shrug
- card_zero 2y ago
  I understand that in the UK, girls perform better than boys at mathematics, but mostly self-select for biology and medicine and psychology anyway, for obscure reasons.
t312227 2y ago
hello, imho. also Samantha "sam" Carter from star-gate "SG1" was a similar (female) role-model in the late 1990ties / early 0es :) * https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/characters/nm0850102?ref_=tt_cl_c_3 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/characters/nm0850102?re... cheers!
- psychoslave 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  Both X-files and SG1 are running regularly these days as some of the few "science-fiction" properties being broadcast right now by comettv.com I expect comet to migrate to a few other vintage series' when these have run their course, so watch them while you can.
- JeremyNT 2y ago
  A few years makes a big difference here I think, given how groundbreaking X-Files was at the time. Perhaps the character of Sam herself owes a debt to Scully for breaking the "sci-fi scientist glass ceiling" a few years prior?
webwielder2 2y ago
No one ever remembers/points out that in the show, Scully was ALWAYS WRONG. Like, every single time. It was aliens or a monster that did it, guaranteed.
- jrmg 2y ago
  She was skeptical, sure, but Scully and her work were often (usually?) instrumental in solving the case.
- tombert 2y ago
  Maybe they only showed you the time that Moulder was right; like maybe 90% of the time it actually wasn’t aliens or ghosts but they just don’t make that into an episode :)
- liampulles 2y ago
  They were often both wrong too, or rather "the plot thickened".
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    My favorite scene in the entire series is when she sits down with the female FBI biologist to discuss the "monkey pee" sample called Purity Control. I think the whole show pivots on that scene and it's fascinating. Your imagination is turned loose and you can't wait to watch the rest of the show.
- jhbadger 2y ago
  Most of the time she was wrong, but not always. For example, she correctly determined that the "UFO photo" in E.B.E (S01E17) was a fake while Mulder was completely uncritical of it. And she was often right when the cases involved something to do with Catholic theology, but I'm not sure that counts because in those cases, Mulder was the skeptic and she was the believer (as Mulder is agnostic and Scully a devout Catholic).
  - tivert 2y ago
    > And she was often right when the cases involved something to do with Catholic theology, but I'm not sure that counts because in those cases, Mulder was the skeptic and she was the believer (as Mulder is agnostic and Scully a devout Catholic). And that kind of complexity makes the character interesting, instead of a cardboard scientist trope.
NemoNobody 2y ago
Diversity cannot be based solely on the visual assortment of your characters, or checking all the boxes to make sure that everyone is included - that gets a sort of representation but often so obviously forced, so cliche, one dimensional, characters that have been done so many times before, we all know exactly why they are there - to brag about the "diversity" I'm a gay man in my 30s - there wasn't really representation of me onscreen til recently, what was there was a stereotype that I saw repeatedly and really didn't do me any favors. Funny so many are mentioning Star Trek, I'm on a watch of the whole shows RN and I just got to Discovery - coming from Enterprise and after so many critics praised the diverse cast and LGBT characters, I was curious and expecting better than I'd seen Trek at least do before. Instead, Discovery is an example of exactly the kind of manufactured diversity I don't want to see, at all - the same predictable "one size fits all" lazy bs that is honestly almost worse than no representation at some point I'm on episode 6-7, maybe it gets better but so far such a predictable disappointment
- selfmodruntime 2y ago
  The stereotype is still as strong as ever. I do not feel represented at all by overly gay flamboyant men whose only personality trait seems to be that they happen to have sex with other men. The typical "gay voice" is also largely an American phenomenon. Most gay people are perfectly normal people and their sexuality isn't the thing that defines them. Hollywood hasn't received that message yet I think.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    That's the rub with stereotypes and film when they insist on a lack of subtly for audiences that apparently can't handle or notice it. Perhaps it's acceptable for sitcoms where the characters are intentionally superficial, but generally it represents a demographic poorly to attribute unflattering attributes to a group, be it the flamboyant gay man or the unlucky, weak man. Where I live in the US now, gay cis tend to be both widely-accepted and very common such that it's no longer a stressor in everyday situations. There are trans people including trans males, which are less common but exist in greater numbers with anxieties and reservations gay cis people had 20 years ago. Outside of the area, Christian white nationalist patriarchy is the norm.
tombert 2y ago
I am not a woman, but I consider Silence of the Lambs to be in my top five favorite films, and a large part of the reason I love it so much is because of how it actually talks about sexism in more subtle ways. The male characters aren’t overtly sexist to Clarice, but there’s tons of little microagresssions (e.g. multiple male characters making a pass at her when she’s just trying to do a job, the Crawford subtly trying to talk to the police chief without her because he thinks woman can’t handle gruesome details, etc.). None of the characters are really doing anything reportable, and they’re not “bad” people, and they’re not cartoonish stereotypes of sexists. It was something I noticed even as a teenager watching the movie the first time. I would like to think I am a tiny bit more aware of institutional sexism than I would have been without the movie. It’s too bad that everything else in the Hannibal universe has blown chunks.
- liampulles 2y ago
  Not sure if you are including Manhunter in the blowing chunks category, but consider checking it out. Quality Michael Mann movie.
  - tombert 2y ago
    I didn’t really like that one either, though I think that has more to do that I’ve never been able to vibe with Michael Mann’s style.
- sdwr 2y ago
  It's interesting that your memory focuses on what the men were doing, and hers on the woman's hero story. I liked the Hannibal TV show (at the time). Is it worse than I remember?
  - tombert 2y ago
    I think about Clarice's character growth a lot as well, I was just bringing up the sexism stuff because I thought it was relevant to the article. Clarice's character growth is (brilliantly) almost spoiled by the movie's title; the lambs screaming in her head symbolize a sense of failure and guilt that she's carried for her entire life; stopping Buffalo Bill, if only for a moment, made the metaphorical lambs silent. I got pretty bored with the TV show, it just kind of kept going. It also felt like they kept acting Will Graham like had a superpower just because he had empathy for serial killers? My wife and I got almost exactly halfway through the series, and eventually I asked her "do we really want to keep watching this?" and she said "nope" and we turned on something else. Also, I'm pretty annoyed that they decided to double-down on Hannibal's samurai origin story from Hannibal Rising, which I thought was pretty dumb.
maxrecursion 2y ago
I seen a job posting for the FBI that blatantly stated you will work well over 40 hours a week, and all but made clear your job will be your life. So, yeah, it's not a job for someone that wants work/life balance.
liampulles 2y ago
What I always enjoyed about Scully's character was her skeptical approach. She understood that the job of FBI agents is to build a case, to document, and be rigorous. She followed the evidence.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  A bit late with this reply but my first interpretation of the Scully effect before reading the content was to think it referred to her habit of repeatedly disregarding inexplicable things with way too much skepticism despite eventually spending years with Mulder, across dozens of cases, where absolutely, completely fucking inexplicable things just kept happening. I get being skeptical and always insisting on scientific rigor, evidence and documentation with each new case (especially if you're conducting legal investigations) but come on!. After the Nth time in which Mulder posits a paranormal cause only for Scully to raise her eyebrow as if he were off his rocker, it's really her who becomes just a bit absurd... She just somehow has no adaptability for benefit of the doubt despite the many, many other times her partner was absolutely on the ball in suspecting the weird? No changed perspective from, oh I don't know, multiple up-close encounters with things like 100-year-old liver-eating, hibernating elastic-man monsters, or human/marine parasite hybrids, or mind-controlling worms, space aliens, ghosts, demonic possession, sentient viruses, psychopathic telepathic killers, time travelers, inter-dimensional beings, witches even! and etc and etc and etc?
datavirtue 2y ago
I always thought it was odd that Scully was always the one getting clobbered by some psychopath. Kidnapped, beat on many occasions, abducted and impregnated. If they want to be like Scully they are brave.
EricE 2y ago
When I first saw the headline my thoughts revolved around how the heck can a long past CEO of Apple still be relevant? Ugh...

119 points by joebig 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

“Elizabeth Rubio lives with too many cats in Austin, Texas” That’s the upshot. Ms. Rubio’s life path is an evolutionary dead end. For her message to perpetuate itself into the future, she needs to create women role models that are smart but also retain femininity and value having a family, and not just try to have them ape men. Muslim [1] and Israeli populations walk this line well [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

justinclift 2y ago
Non-paywalled version: https://archive.md/fPlxw https://archive.md/fPlxw

lupire 2y ago

I find it incredibly bizarre, ther scientists, of all professions, are inspired by fantasy story characters. It's so at odds with what science is. I'm a a scientist and I enjoy sci-fi, but the cause and effect is firmly in the other direction.

HocusLocus 2y ago

Nichelle Nichols (1932-2022, Uhura on Star Trek) had a similar impact, bless her sweet soul. 2011-07-10,11: Startalk: Nichelle Nichols. great interview! http://www.startalkradio.net/show/nasa-and-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/nasa-and-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-nichelle-nichols/ http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-nichel... Through her ground-breaking role as Star Trek's Chief Communications Officer Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols became a passionate advocate to get women and minorities involved in real-world space exploration. Many were inspired to become astronauts thanks to her efforts, including NASA's current administrator, General Charles Bolden. While she continues working through various endeavors to get young people excited about space, she hopes that the power of Star Trek will inspire us to keep pushing the boundaries of the final frontier. 2011-07-11: StarTalk: A Conversation with Nichelle Nichols Some might know Nichelle Nichols best from Star Trek, but this actress, singer, dancer and space advocate has much to say beyond her role in TV's exploration of the final frontier. In this exclusive interview, she talks about how science fiction and Star Trek --- and specifically her ground-breaking role as Chief Communications Officer Lt. Uhura --- not only impacted her life, but also had an influence on society over space and time.

TMWNN 2y ago

Highly relevant: TIL that Leonard Nimoy met many fans who became scientists because of Spock's example, and talked to the 'Star Trek' actor as if he were a fellow researcher. Nimoy always nodded and told them, "Well, it certainly looks like you’re headed in the right direction." <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6o8egb/til_that_leonard_nimoy_met_many_fans_who_became/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6o8egb/til_th...> TIL that DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy on 'Star Trek') had wanted to become a doctor, but could not afford medical school. He received many letters from fans who went into medicine because of his character: "To influence the youth of the country ... is an award that is not handed out by the industry". <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6pwdrr/til_that_deforest_kelley_dr_mccoy_on_star_trek/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6pwdrr/til_th...> TIL that James Doohan (Scotty on 'Star Trek') received an honorary doctorate from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The university gave him the degree after half of its students said in a survey that his character had inspired them to choose engineering as a career. <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6onyh6/til_that_james_doohan_scotty_on_star_trek/ https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6onyh6/til_th...>

card_zero 2y ago
Patrick Stewart influenced me to drink even more tea.
- teekert 2y ago
  Kate Mulgrew influenced me to drink even more coffee ;) "There's coffee in that nebula!"
- teekert 2y ago
  Btw, every time we have another war, fail to meet climate goals, etc, I imagine Jean-Luc looking down on us through a force-field window of the Enterprise in orbit, sighing: "Savages."
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Spock was somehow was equally damning just by saying "fascinating!"

kaycebasques 2y ago

> We can’t create a reality until we can imagine it.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

wumms 2y ago

> The influence of the Dana Scully character on my generation of girls is known as the Scully Effect. The linked PDF is offline; archived version [0] from 2018; created somewhere between 2016-2018. [0] THE ”SCULLY EFFECT“: I WANT TO BELIEVE…IN STEM https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21...

zaep 2y ago

Can it possibly be true that 60+% (she writes "nearly two-thirds") of women in STEM have this character as an influence? I'm only barely aware of this media property and here in Europe I feel our Media is fairly "American" still, does this show have such a global reach? I found, for instance, that the X-Files movie only had 4.2% of its revenue internationally, so I think its not such a popular property outside the US. How would even 10% of chinese female STEM workers hear of this character? I believe she is citing the PDF she links, where only an archived version is available right now. It seems to be a US-only study, although I don't see any explanation of where participants were from.

datpiff 2y ago
The movies were much less successful than the TV series. The series was definitely hugely popular in Western Europe at least, I can't speak for the whole continent. Yep, the PDF/study is US-based (and funded by 21st Century Fox lol) " The sample was demographically representative and weighted to be representative of women in the U.S. population based on age (25 and older), STEM involvement, and viewing of The X-Files" https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180605152837/https://impact.21...
theshrike79 2y ago
It's not about revenue, but cultural penetration and knowledge. "Everyone" knew who and what Scully was. She was the doctor/scientist brains of the team, while Mulder just went around investigating crazy stuff.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Same with Star Trek a generation before - a whole generation of scientists and engineers would site Spock and Scotty as inspirations.

teekert 2y ago

I'm a man (also from early 80's) and I still identified more with Scully than with Mulder. She was just so cool. Now I have a daughter and she's all about unicorns, rainbows and princesses and I keep telling her she can be a knight. Or a scientist. Weirdly I think all those Barbie cartoons on Netflix are having a good influence on her, Barbie is strong but fallible, honest, admits her mistakes, works hard to correct them, does not give up. She super privileged though... I feel like my daughter is getting quite good in social situations because of Barbie (and Lucky from Spirit, and Zoe from The New Adventures of Lassie). In any case, it has a different influence on her than the stuff my son watches, which is (a sigh of relieve) also increasingly involving strong women: Avatar (the last airbender), She-Ra, Carmen San Diego... Strong women... on the Battle Field.

NemoNobody 2y ago
Little late on this but I watched Stephen Universe with my nephew and I was really impressed with that show - lots of very positive messages and the general feel of the show is quite different from the usual cartoon network show - but still very much a cartoon. I think the snow runner Rebecca Sugar did an excellent job - she was a writer for AT as well. One of my favorite characters is Stephen's Dad - he literally lives in his van. I'd recommend watching with your daughter someday for sure
john2x 2y ago
Have you seen Hilda on Netflix? It’s amazing.
- rlawson 2y ago
  My 6 yr olds favorite show, can be a little dark at times
  - teekert 2y ago
    Just got started on it, thanx for the suggestion! (Nice that it’s with Dutch audio here, what a world!)
  - 2y ago

pdpi 2y ago

Somebody I don’t often see cited as this sort of aspirational role model is Gil Grissom from the original CSI show. He’s the archetypical nerd — quiet introvert who’s enthusiastic about his little niche to the point even his also-pretty-nerdy colleagues think it’s a bit much. He also rises to the challenge of being a leader and a mentor, and he does so with the tools his personality gives him.

NemoNobody 2y ago
Gil was fantastic - such a great role model in hindsight.

light_hue_1 2y ago

This is why representation matters. Regardless of how some parts of the political spectrum hate it now. There's an amazing story about MLK and Star Trek that's similar. Nichelle Nichols recalls https://www.startrek.com/news/nichelle-nichols-remembers-dr-king https://www.startrek.com/news/nichelle-nichols-remembers-dr-... She wanted to quit. She was a real actor, from a serious theater background and this was going to hurt her career. This all took place at the height of the civil rights movement. Selma, Bloody Sunday, had just happened 2 days earlier. Verbatim from the story: That weekend, Nichols attended what she remembers as a NAACP fundraiser, "though, it could have been something else." Whatever it was, she found herself in Beverly Hills, and seated at the dais as other notables entered the room to join in on the festivities. "One of the organizers of the event came over to me and said, 'Ms. Nichols, I hate to bother you just as you’re sitting down to dinner, but there’s someone here who wants very much to meet you. And he said to tell you that he is your biggest fan,'" Nichols said. "I said, 'Oh, certainly,' I stood up and turned around and who comes walking over towards me from about 10 or 15 feet, smiling that rare smile of his, is Dr. Martin Luther King. I remember saying to myself, 'Whoever that fan is, whoever that Trekkie is, it’ll have to wait because I have to meet Dr. Martin Luther King.' And he walks up to me and says, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' You know I can talk, but all my mouth could do was open and close, open and close; I was so stunned." Dr. King revealed to Nichols that Star Trek was the only show that he and his wife Coretta allowed their little children to stay up and watch. Further, he told Nichols what the show meant to him personally and detailed the importance of her having created a character with "dignity and knowledge." Nichols took it all in and finally said, “Thank you so much, Dr. King. I’m really going to miss my co-stars.” Dr. King's smile, Nichols recalled, vanished from his face. "He said, 'What are you talking about?'" the actress explained. "I told him. He said, 'You cannot,' and so help me, this man practically repeated verbatim what Gene said. He said, 'Don’t you see what this man is doing, who has written this? This is the future. He has established us as we should be seen. 300 years from now, we are here. We are marching. And this is the first step. When we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud.' He goes on and I’m looking at him and my knees are buckling. I said, 'I…, I…' And he said, 'You turn on your television and the news comes on and you see us marching and peaceful, you see the peaceful civil disobedience, and you see the dogs and see the fire hoses, and we all know they cannot destroy us because we are there in the 23rd Century.'" "That’s all it took," Nichols continued. "I went back on Monday morning and told Gene what had happened. He sat there behind that desk and a tear came down his face, and he looked up at me. I said, 'Gene, if you want me to stay, I will stay. There’s nothing I can do but stay.' He looked at me and said, 'God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Somebody truly knows what I am trying to do.' [Roddenberry] opened his drawer, took out my resignation and handed it to me. He had torn it to pieces. He handed me the 100 pieces and said, 'Welcome back.'”

kleiba 2y ago

> The influence of the Dana Scully character on my generation of girls is known as the Scully Effect. We women who frequently watched The X-Files as teenagers were more than 50% more likely to study a STEM field in college than women who didn’t watch. Good old "correlation is not causation" at play, I suppose: if you're scientifically inclined, you're probably more likely to both watch X-Files and go into a STEM field later on.

jonathanlydall 2y ago
Back when CSI at least seemed to be plausible. I used to really enjoy CSI, I didn't even mind that Miami was quite cheesy, but at some point after they started New York all of them had gotten beyond ridiculous in their depictions of technology and what it was capable of, it was completely fantastical and seemed to lack any kind of basis on reality. Maybe it was also that I was getting older and having less time, but the CSI series were the first shows that despite watching somewhat religiously, I actually stopped watching in disgust and also feeling a bit angry at how useless the producers and/or screenplay writers had become.

cjs_ac 2y ago

I was a physics teacher in Australia and the UK from 2015 to 2021. I wrote a comment about teaching in a boys' school yesterday, but most of my career was spent in girls' schools, due partly to the Vogonic culture of the NSW Department of Education and Training. There were many 'get girls into STEM' initiatives, and they all felt very tokenistic and superficial. They were science-themed, but none of them got at the guts of STEM. In Australia, physics - in the schools that offer it - is taught by chemistry or biology teachers who've been given a physics textbook. In the private boys' schools, there's a cadre of actual physicists, but they're old men on the verge of retirement; students in government schools, systemic Catholic schools and private girls' schools get a very un-mathematical physics education, if their school offers a specialised physics course at all. The end result of this is the propagation of a very misleading view of STEM to girls. All the high-paying STEM jobs are in those fields that have a rigorous mathematical formalism - physics, computer science, engineering - but our STEM outreach programs ended up pushing girls towards 'soft science' careers in biology. I understand that there are now so many bio lab workers in the UK that they're now on minimum wage. If we really want to encourage women and girls to take up high-paying STEM careers, we need to be demonstrating and teaching the cognitive styles that underlie success in mathematics. At the moment, all we're doing is making maths pink[0]. [0] https://skepchick.org/2010/08/smbc-women-in-mathematics/ https://skepchick.org/2010/08/smbc-women-in-mathematics/

gizajob 2y ago
"very tokenistic and superficial" - welcome to 'straya m8.
pydry 2y ago
I dont think there is any real political imperative to welcome women into science. STEM is intrinsically difficult and in demand which means it's highly paid and as a result there is a political imperative to drag down wages....somehow. Bringing more women in probably seems as good a way as any to the old, white, male (and sexist) reactionary politicians and their business leader sponsors. So, they tried to make science pink shrug
card_zero 2y ago
I understand that in the UK, girls perform better than boys at mathematics, but mostly self-select for biology and medicine and psychology anyway, for obscure reasons.

t312227 2y ago

hello, imho. also Samantha "sam" Carter from star-gate "SG1" was a similar (female) role-model in the late 1990ties / early 0es :) * https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/characters/nm0850102?ref_=tt_cl_c_3 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/characters/nm0850102?re... cheers!

psychoslave 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc
fuzzfactor 2y ago
Both X-files and SG1 are running regularly these days as some of the few "science-fiction" properties being broadcast right now by comettv.com I expect comet to migrate to a few other vintage series' when these have run their course, so watch them while you can.
JeremyNT 2y ago
A few years makes a big difference here I think, given how groundbreaking X-Files was at the time. Perhaps the character of Sam herself owes a debt to Scully for breaking the "sci-fi scientist glass ceiling" a few years prior?

webwielder2 2y ago

No one ever remembers/points out that in the show, Scully was ALWAYS WRONG. Like, every single time. It was aliens or a monster that did it, guaranteed.

jrmg 2y ago
She was skeptical, sure, but Scully and her work were often (usually?) instrumental in solving the case.
tombert 2y ago
Maybe they only showed you the time that Moulder was right; like maybe 90% of the time it actually wasn’t aliens or ghosts but they just don’t make that into an episode :)
liampulles 2y ago
They were often both wrong too, or rather "the plot thickened".
- datavirtue 2y ago
  My favorite scene in the entire series is when she sits down with the female FBI biologist to discuss the "monkey pee" sample called Purity Control. I think the whole show pivots on that scene and it's fascinating. Your imagination is turned loose and you can't wait to watch the rest of the show.
jhbadger 2y ago
Most of the time she was wrong, but not always. For example, she correctly determined that the "UFO photo" in E.B.E (S01E17) was a fake while Mulder was completely uncritical of it. And she was often right when the cases involved something to do with Catholic theology, but I'm not sure that counts because in those cases, Mulder was the skeptic and she was the believer (as Mulder is agnostic and Scully a devout Catholic).
- tivert 2y ago
  > And she was often right when the cases involved something to do with Catholic theology, but I'm not sure that counts because in those cases, Mulder was the skeptic and she was the believer (as Mulder is agnostic and Scully a devout Catholic). And that kind of complexity makes the character interesting, instead of a cardboard scientist trope.

NemoNobody 2y ago

Diversity cannot be based solely on the visual assortment of your characters, or checking all the boxes to make sure that everyone is included - that gets a sort of representation but often so obviously forced, so cliche, one dimensional, characters that have been done so many times before, we all know exactly why they are there - to brag about the "diversity" I'm a gay man in my 30s - there wasn't really representation of me onscreen til recently, what was there was a stereotype that I saw repeatedly and really didn't do me any favors. Funny so many are mentioning Star Trek, I'm on a watch of the whole shows RN and I just got to Discovery - coming from Enterprise and after so many critics praised the diverse cast and LGBT characters, I was curious and expecting better than I'd seen Trek at least do before. Instead, Discovery is an example of exactly the kind of manufactured diversity I don't want to see, at all - the same predictable "one size fits all" lazy bs that is honestly almost worse than no representation at some point I'm on episode 6-7, maybe it gets better but so far such a predictable disappointment

selfmodruntime 2y ago
The stereotype is still as strong as ever. I do not feel represented at all by overly gay flamboyant men whose only personality trait seems to be that they happen to have sex with other men. The typical "gay voice" is also largely an American phenomenon. Most gay people are perfectly normal people and their sexuality isn't the thing that defines them. Hollywood hasn't received that message yet I think.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  That's the rub with stereotypes and film when they insist on a lack of subtly for audiences that apparently can't handle or notice it. Perhaps it's acceptable for sitcoms where the characters are intentionally superficial, but generally it represents a demographic poorly to attribute unflattering attributes to a group, be it the flamboyant gay man or the unlucky, weak man. Where I live in the US now, gay cis tend to be both widely-accepted and very common such that it's no longer a stressor in everyday situations. There are trans people including trans males, which are less common but exist in greater numbers with anxieties and reservations gay cis people had 20 years ago. Outside of the area, Christian white nationalist patriarchy is the norm.

tombert 2y ago

I am not a woman, but I consider Silence of the Lambs to be in my top five favorite films, and a large part of the reason I love it so much is because of how it actually talks about sexism in more subtle ways. The male characters aren’t overtly sexist to Clarice, but there’s tons of little microagresssions (e.g. multiple male characters making a pass at her when she’s just trying to do a job, the Crawford subtly trying to talk to the police chief without her because he thinks woman can’t handle gruesome details, etc.). None of the characters are really doing anything reportable, and they’re not “bad” people, and they’re not cartoonish stereotypes of sexists. It was something I noticed even as a teenager watching the movie the first time. I would like to think I am a tiny bit more aware of institutional sexism than I would have been without the movie. It’s too bad that everything else in the Hannibal universe has blown chunks.

liampulles 2y ago
Not sure if you are including Manhunter in the blowing chunks category, but consider checking it out. Quality Michael Mann movie.
- tombert 2y ago
  I didn’t really like that one either, though I think that has more to do that I’ve never been able to vibe with Michael Mann’s style.
sdwr 2y ago
It's interesting that your memory focuses on what the men were doing, and hers on the woman's hero story. I liked the Hannibal TV show (at the time). Is it worse than I remember?
- tombert 2y ago
  I think about Clarice's character growth a lot as well, I was just bringing up the sexism stuff because I thought it was relevant to the article. Clarice's character growth is (brilliantly) almost spoiled by the movie's title; the lambs screaming in her head symbolize a sense of failure and guilt that she's carried for her entire life; stopping Buffalo Bill, if only for a moment, made the metaphorical lambs silent. I got pretty bored with the TV show, it just kind of kept going. It also felt like they kept acting Will Graham like had a superpower just because he had empathy for serial killers? My wife and I got almost exactly halfway through the series, and eventually I asked her "do we really want to keep watching this?" and she said "nope" and we turned on something else. Also, I'm pretty annoyed that they decided to double-down on Hannibal's samurai origin story from Hannibal Rising, which I thought was pretty dumb.

maxrecursion 2y ago

I seen a job posting for the FBI that blatantly stated you will work well over 40 hours a week, and all but made clear your job will be your life. So, yeah, it's not a job for someone that wants work/life balance.

liampulles 2y ago

What I always enjoyed about Scully's character was her skeptical approach. She understood that the job of FBI agents is to build a case, to document, and be rigorous. She followed the evidence.

southernplaces7 2y ago
A bit late with this reply but my first interpretation of the Scully effect before reading the content was to think it referred to her habit of repeatedly disregarding inexplicable things with way too much skepticism despite eventually spending years with Mulder, across dozens of cases, where absolutely, completely fucking inexplicable things just kept happening. I get being skeptical and always insisting on scientific rigor, evidence and documentation with each new case (especially if you're conducting legal investigations) but come on!. After the Nth time in which Mulder posits a paranormal cause only for Scully to raise her eyebrow as if he were off his rocker, it's really her who becomes just a bit absurd... She just somehow has no adaptability for benefit of the doubt despite the many, many other times her partner was absolutely on the ball in suspecting the weird? No changed perspective from, oh I don't know, multiple up-close encounters with things like 100-year-old liver-eating, hibernating elastic-man monsters, or human/marine parasite hybrids, or mind-controlling worms, space aliens, ghosts, demonic possession, sentient viruses, psychopathic telepathic killers, time travelers, inter-dimensional beings, witches even! and etc and etc and etc?

datavirtue 2y ago

I always thought it was odd that Scully was always the one getting clobbered by some psychopath. Kidnapped, beat on many occasions, abducted and impregnated. If they want to be like Scully they are brave.

EricE 2y ago

When I first saw the headline my thoughts revolved around how the heck can a long past CEO of Apple still be relevant? Ugh...